


Cocada Preta

by Starlink



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Detectives, Fights, Gen, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:15:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27946649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starlink/pseuds/Starlink
Summary: The theft of an rare item.Mobsters werewolves fans of bossa nova.A grumpy and tired priest and his always optimistic sidekick have to fix a problem no one else can.The tropical breeze of Copacabana won't be the same with these two around.





	1. Welcome to Rio

The waves of the beach were peaceful and a nice change of pace for once to Henrique Santiago Jones, most of the time he was sent to the middle of the cities in some forsaken land or having to walk on cold snowy countries, but there was one issue walking on the beach of Rio.

“It’s so damn hot.” mumbled to himself, he wasn’t wearing his priest robes, but instead normal shorts and a simple light blue t-shirt. It wasn't anything over the top but wouldn't get him mixed up with the cheapest clothing. 

He was supposed to find his contact in a bar nearby the Copacabana beach, they didn't want others members of the Church who lived around involved and risk their safety once the mission was over, and that ended up with him, thanks to his situation he would be able to go around the world, but that also meant barely time to stay in a place for too long until his services were needed. 

The beach was full of people as it should be on a hot summer day. Everyone looked fine and within the place, except one person. Yu Yan. She was wearing her Chinese dress as she always did, it didn't matter the weather or the temperature. She was always wearing a similar dress, she was walking right besides him with a parasol. Luckily when they entered the bar it had air conditioners.

"Santy, look at those seashells I found!" 

"Not now." 

"C'mon. We are at the beach, and it's really pretty too."

He didn't have time to look for what she was trying to show him as he was focusing on looking at what this bar had and how to find the one who called their help. But to not give a bad impression or other intentions he asked for a butler to get cold water for him and chocolate flavored ice cream for the girl.

It was easy to find his contact. Since it was a mage and as far mages would go, their attempts to be discreet was far from successful. Mages usually liked to use what could be one thing as over the top and the man he found was a fashion disaster. The tanned man he found only salvation was his sunglasses that looked like straight out of a futuristic movie from how ridiculous it looked. He took a seat in front of the man.

“Was this your best definition of being discreet?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m the guy who came to solve your problem.”

“You don’t look like a priest. You are not using those robes and that ugly collar.”

Henrique left out a sigh, he already was up to a good start. Not only to have to deal with a mage, but an idiotic one at that. “Just because I’m a priest it doesn’t mean I have to wear that thing all the time. I have other pieces of clothing.”

“I can confirm! He has other types of clothing and so do I!”

“Who are you?”

“She’s with me.”

“Come on, I just wanted one person to come and that’s how the Church wants to help.”

“If you want us to help you, take us or go hire a mercenary, but I know this will be more costly than our charity, isn't it?”

The man seemed reluctantly but gave in as he drank a glass cup of beer. “That’s horrible. Absolutely horrible. I don’t even know where to start it.”

“How about with your name?”

“Right, Bruno Alves.”

“I’m Yu, Mr. Bruno! Pleased to meet you!” The girl spoke while eating the ice cream in her mouth

“You speak portuguese?”

“I’m from Macau and I had to learn....” She started to speak in Chinese, it wasn’t anything new for Henique and a few other people he talks more often than not, but for other people their reactions were mostly of surprise and confusion.

“I’m not understanding you now.”

Before she could keep going Henrique flicked her forehead. “Eating and talking don’t work. I thought you knew that much.” then snapped his finger to the mage. “Bruno. Attention. Tell me why did you contact us to help you with? No one told us anything except that only us could do it.”

“I’m one of the responsible people for the research of private information. Top secret. And well… someone snitched and we got robbed. We can't hire mercenaries because no one wants to get involved against the CP gang or we don't know if they will rob this just for their own selfish reasons."

“And that is?”

“A petrifieddragonegg.”

“I can’t hear you.”

“A petrified… dragon egg.” Bruno still spoke in a low tune looking to the sides, after all, one item like that was something that shouldn’t be brought out of the open. Henrique was visibly 

“You gotta be kidding me. How you still manage to breathe is beyond me.” He drinks his glass of water. “Do you know how hard it is to even find one of those things and how tough they are to handle and still lose it?” 

“What’s wrong, Santy?” Yu did stop eating her ice cream to ask this time “What’s so bad about it?"

"Dragons used to live with us and carry a lot of magic energy, now they are extinct. But even the remains of a dead dragon carries plenty of energy. So even an egg carries enough energy to what could be 40,000 powerful mages combined."

“This means we have to get from this CP. What does CP mean?”

“Cocada Preta.”

“Right, and that is?”

“That’s the most powerful gang that there is in the underworld! They are filled with those furries.” The mage was trying to hide his face when he used the slur about werewolves and started chugging his drink. “Thinking they are the greatest thing of all. And God only knows what they’ll do with it! Are you guys seriously from the Church and not know...?!”

Henrique flicked the mage's forehead “Enough. Just tell us where they stay.”

“Not far from here, they have a bossa nova club, Beastars.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“I have no idea. They are a big thing, but only a few people were really invited to go there. And since I’m not one of their turfs, thanks Merlin, I have no idea who could know.”

“Of course you don’t.” mumbling to himself.

“That’s all we needed to know.” Henrique got up from his seat, patted the hair of the young chinese girl who was finishing her ice cream cone while still holding her parasol. “We’ll meet at the beach at night.”

“Tonight?! You guys can be really that fast?”

“Do you think we aren’t?”

“No, no! It’s that people don’t really have anything usually takes a week or more.”

“I’ve been called to deal with it. So I take care of it in the most efficient way even if we lack the information needed.” He drank a bit of cold water.

“I’ll be waiting!” He started waving with a punchable smile, heretics were known for being lazy and thinking greatly of themselves and that man was no different.

“Sure, sure.” He gave a tired sigh, he really didn’t like the way that lazy mage was smiling at him. “Yu, we’re leaving.” As he went to pay the cashier for what he ordered. 

Once they got out, they had to start asking where this Beastars club was and what it was all about. Asking some people they didn’t get any interesting information.

They had been spending the next hours walking around downtown on it, even if most of the answers they were getting were no. They got to see some of the city. For Yu, it was a bliss to look around and see so many people.

She managed to talk with a few people from many different ages but even if Henrique made her watch outside she would walk around the small markets and newspaper stands as if she was marching with a gun and the gun would be her ‘parasol’, which led Henrique to flick her forehead for acting like that.

Henrique wasn’t having a pleasant time as Yu, people had no idea what kind of club it was and the foreigner name made them think it was some kind of band or anything else. This was tiresome for him, but he wouldn’t give in. He was assigned with this.

The day was starting to end and they still had no clues or made any progress on it, they started to ask for taxists about said club but they weren’t aware of it either.

“Santy, this city is really pretty. We should go more often to the beach, it’s way better than the usual cities.”

“If only I was tasked for something like this more often than not.” Complained the priest as they were walking downhill in front of a supermarket. There weren’t many people walking around, luckily it wasn’t too narrow to walk around, he wouldn’t like to be in a claustrophobic scenario. “I think we should get something to eat. Having to walk around the town does tire anyone out.”

“Then I'll be able to show you the seashell?"

"Yeah, but not when I'm eating."

"Sweet." The girl cheered. Moving the parasol she was holding from one side to another was rather easy for her, as if "And we'll have some good food too!"

"Don't count much on it, we'll have the usual…. Hey! Look out! You almost hit me with it. This isn’t a toy."

The girl was still cheering and happy, in her own little world, not listening. It wasn’t unusual for him to see the girl to be acting like that. “Yu, you should train a bit more of your legs, we’ve been walking, but you haven’t really ran today except when you made me wake up to go to the beach. You need to keep up with the daily training.”

The girl stopped playing with the parasol once she heard the word “training”, she immediately stopped swinging the parasol around and turned to him “Running? Until the supermarket?” She put her free hand on her forehead to see how far away they were. “I can do this in 7 minutes!”

“Alright. You have 5 minutes, then.” He checked his wristwatch, this would make her put more effort, not that he already hadn’t other ways, but this one was the most fitting at the moment “I’ll see you soon, then.”

“Okay, whenever you say it!”

“I already started counting five seconds ago.”

“Not fair!”

“I’m not seeing you running.”

She started running down the hill with the Parasol on her hands, she was going at an absurd speed, but that wasn’t surprising for him as he made her train very hard most of the nights while they did their tasks during the day, those sessions makes her sleep very peaceful and not a sound can be heard, making Henrique stay up filling reports, thinking of what to do next or just read the Art of War before falling asleep on the seat.

But now that he was alone, a few steps could be heard, two tall men, one that was fully bearded and the other had a soccer team tattoo on his right arm, both having faces of not having many friends. But the important part that was better to highlight, they were taller and way physically stronger than Henrique.

“What a happy girl you have there running around.”

“It can’t be helped, she likes to do whatever she wants to.”

“Is she your daughter?”

“How about we cut the friendly talk and tell me why have you been following us for the last two hours?”

“Well, once we heard the word of mouth spread about an outsider like you starting to ask questions about how to get in a certain place, we couldn’t let that off the hook.”

The two strong tall men approached him, cornering him to a white colored wall. Henrique was feeling a bit annoyed by how they were making him go along with what was going on “So you two are from the gang. Can you two tell me directions in how to get there?”

The two mobsters looked at each other and started laughing at the Exorcist “Why should we tell you this?”

“Because I need to talk with your boss.”

“You are really funny, man. Is not anyone who can join, let alone go there. But if you keep asking questions we’ll have to give treatment on you. Nothing personnel.”

Henrique gave out a sigh and started looking at his wristwatch ignoring what the bearded man was saying. “I’m not going to hurt him or anything. I’m not a battle freak. I don’t even live here. I just think it would be nice to have a chat and solve an issue.”

“Are you deaf? Why should we tell you?”

“Because this will spare any complications.”

“Only if you beat us.” The two men were approaching even more to the priest who wasn’t wearing any clothes that would tell him that he is a priest.

“This sounds fair enough.”

“For how long do you intend to be looking at this clock? Are you going to tell the police the time we beat senses onto you to stop going after us?”

“No.” Henrique kept looking at the watch “It’s just another thing I said I was going to record.”

“What would that be then?”

“I won’t ruin it by telling you.”

“Fine, be it your way. That’s what happens when you mess with us!” The tattooed man raised his fist, ready to launch an attack, one punch from those guys would definitely knock him out. But he didn’t even flinch, he was sure as the day had 24 hours he wouldn’t get hit by such sloppy and bad timed punch, he could see four openings on this movement, actually six, but those two would require him to actually act.

He did exactly what he wanted. Keep them distracted as they couldn’t pay attention to their surroundings, except for him. they couldn’t notice a young girl running with a ‘parasol’ on her hand. Her steps were swift and quiet.

The tattooed man didn’t notice until she hit the base of the ‘parasol’ on the concrete to boost her jump and as he turned his head, her flying kick was already on his ribs. Sending him to the ground and rolling on the streets.

And before the bearded man could process what was going on, she charged at him and as he tried to punch her, she not only dodged by going to his back. She used her own back as well to hit him, getting the maximum of the momentum to make his own strength his own. The way she moved her shoulders and back and the position of her legs to create a greater impact on the big man against her was incredible. It was enough for knocking him out of the cold with those balanced and calculated movements. Sending the mobster to the wall next to Henrique, while she was still holding the must-have beach item.

“I did it! How did it go, Santy?”

“You are twenty seconds late.”

“No way!” Instead of just seeing this as utter defeat by how cold and straight of a reply she got from Henrique, she celebrates the answer “Yes! This means I got faster than last time!”

“You never see a bad side of criticism, do you?” Henrique wasn’t happy that she didn’t get the exact time as he timed in. But she did surpass the goal that she had set previously, that was enough to make him satisfied. Of course he wouldn’t tell her, that would make her way too happy and would result in her wanting to cause a ruckus about it. 

He tried to hide his smile of satisfaction by reminding himself of the tattooed guy who was sent to the pavement, he hoped that she didn’t see his smile, she would think he was going easy on her.

“Now, now. Let’s see what this guy has here for us.”

Henrique walked to the guy who was still conscious but on the floor in pain trying to get up but once he sees the foreigner approaching him he stops it “Looks like you guys got beaten up.” He gets down to make sure the man was listening. “Now tell me. Where is this club?”

“Look _mano_. I have no reason why to tell you. You're not the one who beat us.”

“The girl’s with me.” He pointed at the girl who was checking the other man who was on the floor and waved at them by noticing the pointing.

“It doesn’t count.”

“So you’re going back in your words. I didn’t know Cocada Preta has dishonourable members after talking so highly of them.”

The classic strategy of making them think they are ruining their image by not collaborating instead of keeping their mouth shut was a success. The man told them the location and when it would open because the gang image’s were at stake against two people, he even got a card of the club.

“Who are you two?”

“Just some people passing by. That’s all. Tell your boss that I’ll pay a visit to him tonight. Could you do that for me?”

“You two are crazy for wanting to talk with him!”

“I know, I know. Now get your friend over there and maybe tonight we can even see each other. Isn’t that great?” He turns to Yu “Lets go, we’re going to that supermarket then we’ll get ready and go to this incredible club.”

“Goodbye, Mister Tattooed man!” Said Yu with her happy energy as she always had. “See you tonight!”

They started resuming their way to the supermarket, not even giving a look back as the other would talk with his friend.

There was much more to worry about and plan, after all the mission was only getting started.


	2. A bit of salt isn't so bad after all.

Going back to the modest hotel after having to beat those thugs who were nothign but stupid people sure made Henrique and Yu Yan hungry. But first the had to go to the local market and buy the basics for a decent meal, they couldn't afford to go to a restaurant eat whatever they wanted, but getting a bit of a salad, typical food from there and even an ice cream box, after all, no one would just ignore ice cream in a place with high temperatures.

Finally once they arrived at the hotel, they started cooking a balanced meal, despite them being travelling they were still on duty. So they couldn’t get side tracked... Not that an ice cream here and there would let them lose track of what to do. But that could let them relax and that would lead to problems when putting in action.

They went back to the hotel and started cooking a balanced meal, despite them being travelling they were still on duty. So they couldn’t get side tracked, not that an ice cream here and there would be a problem. But that could let them relax and that would lead to problems when putting in action.

“Santy, don’t you think they would follow us?” Yu was eating some typical food as dinner, despite not having the slightest idea if it was a good to eat those before departing once again, but hopefully she would learn her lesson.

“They already did follow us for a while, it won’t be surprising that they already know our names, or at the very least know where we are from.”

“So they will try to fight us?” She looked at the window of the room they were staying in. Luckily they were on the seventh floor. So they wouldn’t be able to get in.

“If they wanted to go after us, they would have stopped us.”

“You know what’s weird, Santy?”

The way she was making too many questions would get his own food cold by replying to them, luckily he had time before them going to that club.

“What is it?”

“It’s weird that Mister Bruno mentioned werewolves but he didn’t mention vampires.” She was cutting her beef with precise, yet large pieces. “Didn’t you say that when there’s wolves, there’s bats too?”

“You are right. When there’s wolves around. There are vampires nearby. After all, they are the ones who put some collars on them. But from the way they are saying how great their gang was. It’s possible these are not the usual ones we have to deal with.”

“But what about the hierarchy?”

“Who has been giving you outdated information?”

“That spanish book you gave me to read.”

“It was written before the Red Eclipse.”

“Red Eclipse?”

“I won’t give you a story lesson right now. Come on. Let’s finish this up before we waste any more time.” Henrique started eating faster to finish up his plate. “Let’s get this done and we can call it a day and maybe we can have a day or two relaxing in this place.”

“But Santy, there’s something wrong, isn’t?”

“No, everything is fine. This is just another mission.” He made a thumbs up and made a hand sign for her to be quiet which she nodded. “Let me just place this for the room service to clean and we will leave now.” He got up and looked at her with ‘can you figure out what’s wrong?’ she realized that this was another test for her. Not that Henrique set up. But something was out of the blue.

She stopped eating and looked around the room to think of what could be the cause of the suspicious cause. She looked first at the window, no, there couldn’t be a possible way for something to stalk them there, unless they had somehow controlled Fae or had some kind of familiar that would let them bypass the ritual that Henrique put on them.

The next thing she looked at was at the door, it was one of those doors you can only enter if you have a key card, She couldn’t tell, but there was no other way for anything to keep them.

She slowly approached the door, trying to cause less noise as possible and started touching it. passing her hand around the door. She was in look of something not normal on its surface. 

It didn’t take long until she could feel something wrong with the door. She didn’t have the same knowledge as Henrique and identify right away something magical, but her experiences that she had with him going from one place to another and dealing with many types of issues and she had to go with him since she was very young helped her to know if something was wrong. Even if her specialty was in fighting, she managed to notice this disturbance.

She didn’t want to waste any more time. She went where Henrique was finishing to put the cutlery to open a few drawers. She wasn’t being careful, just opening and closing it very fast without putting too much on it.

“What are you doing? There’s no dessert around here. This will only be when we get everything done.”

“No, Santy. What I’m looking for is… this!”

She pulled out a small item, a small salt shaker, she jumped over the table and removed its cover and poured all over the door.

“What are you doing?! The room service will get mad.”

“Don’t worry Santy, giving them a big tip makes them not see this as problematic!”

“Easy for you to say since this comes out of _my_ wallet.”

“We should write a note saying we’re sorry for the trouble!”

“Alright, I’ll write it.”

Henrique went to grab a pen and grabbed a random leaflet that he had on his nightstand. as he was doing this. Yu was observing the effect of the salt over the door. 

Light orange lines had been drawn out of it. The salt was slowly dissipating the cover and revealing a sign that was composed in five lines.

Two formed a diamond and the other three a triangle over it, the light was faint but not hidden anymore.

“Step back, Yu. I’ll try to clean a bit to avoid this mess from growing any further. Like seriously, how did you do that?” She turned and saw him return from the room, he was wearing gloves as he held a leaflet and a pencil on one hand and the other the chaplet he usually wears around him all the time. “Don’t touch anything. Stay where you are.”

The girl let the man pass, he didn’t get too close to the magical signs like she did.

There wasn’t much to see from it, she could hear mumbles of him praying, but that might as well have been him grumbling and complaining, she was used to seeing him acting like that many times and some moments he didn’t even say the words for the so called blessings, magic that has been granted by angels that taught men of faith about it.

And a few seconds after the small chaplet started to produce a small source of light, almost like a laser that teachers would use to point something in the blackboard at the center of the orange like diamond symbol.

And as the light was pointed to the center of it, the symbol started to disperse and a sound similar to a kettle whistling and nonchalantly making the magic ritual that was in their hotel room door to shatter and fade out as sand that is taken by the strong wind, after the image has been erased. Henrique put the chaplet back on his neck with all care of the world.

“Now we can go.”

“That was a weird wire magic, Santy.”

“Weird? More like amateurish.”

She was used to dealing with magic fields with Henrique and going to many places and learning many different things about magic, but usually when she had to go with him, they weren’t exactly dealing with people who didn’t know what they were doing.

“They didn’t try to hide it properly.”

“Not only that. They forgot about the basics. Whoever put this up, I swear. I don’t have the patience to deal with this newbie stuff.”

“Why didn’t you remove it right after we got in?”

“And make them realize we know of them right away? That’s how you get attacked at night. With the way this person did, they’ll think they messed up somewhere in the process.”

“So the werewolves did that?”

“Not sure. They could have, but if their first opportunity of dealing with us was threatening, I don't think they would waste time trying to be sneaky. That should have been their first course of action. And I don’t think they would be doing rookie mistakes like this. Placing something like this near a place that has salt? I can’t even.”

“Don’t be like this, Santy! Think of the bright side.”

“What bright side?”

“We will be going to the werewolf club and ask them personally about it! If they say no, it could be another group of people that has a grudge against us!”

“Do you think this will remotely narrow the amount of people who want to kick my ass?”

“Maybe.”

“Let’s just go now, okay? Are you ready?”

“One moment.” Yu looks around and grabs the Parasol “Now I’m ready.”

“There’s no way that won’t raise any flags or suspicion on us.”

“We could have said that we were on the beach all day.”

“They’ll know that’s a lie. What have I told you about telling lies?”

“That I should never be… doing this?”

“That too, but, besides leaving that to me and that you should know at the very least know what the other party wants to hear so they won't be angry or suspicious of you at all. Are you sure you want to take this with you?”

She nodded hugging the parasol which made Henrique sigh in frustration after all these years and she acted like that. But that’s how it is “I can’t be helped. Very well, let’s go to the club.”

“Alright! Let’s go!” As she started moving to the door she stopped at the knob. “Wait, Santy. I didn’t get to show the seashell I found to you.”

“We will have time for that once we get this done.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Really, really, really?”

“You are wasting time! Let’s go already.”

She triumphantly opened the door and went to the corridor while Henrique wrote an apology letter to the room service for the salt but didn’t put any money over it. They would have to consider it as a challenge and, also, he didn’t want to spend even more money in this hotel, he would have to ask for a loan if this kept happening.


	3. Chapter 3

Having to walk through the city at night was an entire different experience. Almost like the city has turned into something else entirely.

The city was still more lively than ever except it wasn’t the beach this time, but the bars and shopping malls and some cars that had stopped to play some songs.

“What are they singing about? I don’t understand it.” Despite knowing plenty of songs just like Henrique. Yu never managed to get around other countries slangs so she would take them at face value.

“You don’t want to know, trust me. It’s only going to make you ask more questions.” The contents of the songs weren’t something a priest would like to listen to, then again he also doesn’t have plenty of room to say as he used to listen to songs that were not seen in a positive light by the Church for a while until the turn of the century.

Luckily the club address was more distant from the noise pollution that came from cars, and other clubs. It was something more close to the forest, but also next to the port which made sense for Henrique, as Werewolves would like to stay in that area. Not only is it close to perform business negotiations but also next to what could be their old homes before mankind forced them out of it.

The more they walked the more distant they would be from big buildings and houses, they weren’t close to the favelas either, it was more like the middle of both worlds. But the lack of people and the presence of brushwood put both of them in alert. After all this may be the best place to get tranquility, but also the perfect place to be left behind in tiny pieces.

“Are we there yet?”

“No, but I can see a building in the distance, it must be the one.” He was tired, he didn’t expect that he would end up walking for almost two hours to get there. “It better be or we’ll have to make a pause there.”

“Come on, it wasn’t that much.”

“For you isn’t.”

“Are you saying you are old?”

“I’m not old!”

“Then why are you complaining?”

Henrique replied with a sigh, he knew he was getting old, but being in his forties didn’t mean that he was that old! Well, maybe a bit, but that's besides the point! All he had to do was to plan what to add for her next training as punishment. But for now they had to walk for seven more minutes as the girl enjoyed teasing him.

The building looked out of place for a club. The blue building had an indifferent look. It could be mistaken for any other office building except for a small and almost hard to catch neon sign that said the name of the club “Bestas” and it had a humanoid wolf with a saxophone and some clothes that looked to be from the 1930s.

“Beastars. That stupid mage didn’t even get the name of the club right, no wonder nobody knew about the damn place. Why are most mages like this?”

The parking lot didn’t have any luxury cars parked in, only popular brands. Giving even more of a less of an appearance of some nowhere place even more evident, except for a motorbike that Henrique took a bit of time standing there looking at.

The only thing there was a tall man next to the entrance door. Just like the other two who talked to Henrique, he was also really tall, but didn’t have any tattoos or beards. Just an ugly scar on his chin.

He didn’t take his eyes out of the priest and the girl with a parasol, as they approached, Yu waved at the man with her ever and overly happy mood.

“Hello Mister! Good night!”

“What do you want? You lot are not welcome here.”

“We want to enter!”

“We’re closed. You shouldn’t insist.”

“Why?”

The girl was making the security guard frustrated and confused with her overall happy and optimistic replies when he was trying to be intimidating, Henrique was looking if there were other people.

“We don’t like noisy people.”

“I’m not noisy. You can ask Santy about it!”

“Is she always like…?”

“Yes. And we have a meeting with your boss. Let us pass.”

“Or what?”

“Look, I walked from the city until getting here. Don’t start anything funny.” 

The man who seemed threatening at first was starting to get confused and not sure what to do, but still was on the way to the door.

“We won’t fight or anything.”

The man still kept staring both down. “How about a bottle of water? It won’t take much and we can leave right after drinking it.”

“Do you promise?” Asked the tall scarred man. “If you promise that you two won’t cause trouble I’ll let you two in, but tell no one that I let you win.”

“Promise? Are you...”

“I promise!” Yu replied without even hesitating for a second. “I won’t cause any trouble, Mister!”

The man felt relieved by her agreeing so fast in not causing trouble and looked at Henrique. “Do you promise?”

“I’m not paid enough for this.” He rolled his eyes as he promised to this simple request. “That will do. Right?”

“Yes.” The man was now smiling “Welcome to Bestas club, have an enjoyable time, and remember. if anyone asks you don’t know me.”

“Thank you, Mister! But I don’t know what your name is.”

“Yago.” Henrique thought the man lied since this would only give trouble to him being uncovered if anything goes south.

“Thank you, Mister Yago!” The man opened the door and from there, songs could be heard, loud music. But it wasn’t something like what the cars were playing early. 

The girl entered with her parasol curious about what was going on. The man looked at Henrique before coming in “You’re lucky. If it weren't for the girl…”

“You would have beat me up? Yeah. I figured” He shrugged “She has its perks. I have mine too, and they are super different. But then again, if she knew I got beaten up by you. This girl would get mad and you wouldn't want to see that girl angry, trust me."

"what do you mean?"

"See you later, Yago. Have a nice shift.”

Henrique was a bit suspicious of how the man was relieved because of the promise, he knows that will bite him later depending on what he is up to.

The loud noise wasn’t aggressive nor did have questionable lyrics. In fact, it reminded him a bit of jazz. Yu was in the front and at the end of the corridor that was more colorful than what the building looked like.

She waved at Henrique for him to come faster. “Santy! Check this! It’s so nice!”

“I’m getting there. No need to hurry me up.” He looked around and noticed two cameras in that corridor, he looked at them for a moment, but instead of just shrugging or just giving a heavy sigh, he gave a small wave to the camera. 

“At least they know we’re coming anyway.” mumbled to himself that and other thoughts about what is waiting for him, since he is passing through the narrow corridor. And discovered the source of the sound.

Colorful walls, many round tables and people wearing casual clothings, a bar next to those tables. The lights were not bright, giving a sensation of being noon and at the center of all this there was a stage where a band was playing songs.

Everyone in that room seemed to look at the band with attention and having fun.   
  
“Are we sure that this isn’t just a club?” Asked Henrique, scratching his hair as Yu was looking around. “Do you see any doors?”

“Santy, I’ll look around.”

“Alright. Give it to me. Knowing you, it’s capable of you opening this up. We don’t want any problem out of the blue. Do we?”

The girl gave the parasol to him without questioning him. “Good. now Scram.” Which the girl saluted to him and started walking on her own towards the table.

With these short instructions he noticed some gazes at them. Or rather at him, once he looked at the staring people they tried to hide what they did. And he noticed once again more cameras all over the building. Any wrong move and they would be going home in trash bags.

He started looking at who would be the most important people in the room while Yu would be walking around being… her, she wouldn’t raise many suspicions towards her, maybe annoying a few people, but she had that talent of making people feel at ease.

There were around 30 people by what he could count by the distribution of the table and the band members.

Most of them didn't look to be someone influential or giving a look of annoyance. He believed that maybe the bar part of the room would give him a chance to talk and get things to know better.

There were a few empty seats and he decided to give a shot at it. As he approached he noticed a few glances, but he knew those weren’t nothing but small fry, their real leader wouldn’t be curious of fresh blood with the cameras filming them, the boss was already aware that they would be coming even with those two goons who had been beaten up.

Of the people who could fit this description in that part of the room was a man that differently from the others wasn’t wearing any casual clothing, but formal ones, however, for some reason Henrique couldn’t understand they were wearing a brown and black beanie. And didn’t have a free sit to get next to him as he was in the corner of it drinking. He was around the same height as Henrique but looked to be at the start of his thirties.

Henrique looked at the Barman and ordered two cups: one for him and another for that man; despite the glares under the calm and jazzy song, he approached him. He needed to make the right move to not get expelled, killed and still fulfill that silly promise he had to do.

“Hey. How are you?”

He drinks a bit from his glass, it hits the spot. He didn’t know what that cocktail was. But it was really good. “Long day?”

The man was still drinking when he asked the question who didn’t seem to be bothered by it. He ignored Henrique completely as if he wasn’t worth his time.

“I’m new around here. What’s your name?” 

There was no reason to hide this fact, if they knew who he was, trying to make a cover up story without knowing what they knew about him would end up with him getting in trouble. But he already had everything planned out.

“You really seem busy drinking alone, maybe you should have some company to talk, it must have been a really tough day to be drinking after shift.”

The Barman snickered as if it was something he was used to seeing and never got tired of it which only made Henrique roll his eyes once he brought the drinks for him and that man.

“I’d like to talk with you in private.” Having to carry the ‘parasol’ was a pain, he walked a lot. He just wanted to sit down but didn’t have a chance to do so.

“I don’t know how you got here, but you are looking at the wrong guy.”

“On the contrary, I know you are someone important here.”

“Bugger off. I don’t have the time for whatever you are after.”

“But you do have time to be drinking.”

“I also have the time to punch your face.”

“But you won’t.”

The man finished his drink and would grab another glass, but Henrique was faster and took it. “I bought this for you if you were cooperative. If you don’t want to help I’ll have this glass for myself.”

The barman looked at the man with a beanie and both whispered some words so Henrique couldn’t hear. And soon after the barman left his position and the bar itself. 

“I don’t come here to have someone annoying me.”

“Same here.”

“You must be thinking you are funny or have any advantage. I’ll beat you into a pulp.” 

“So do it. In front of everyone showing how you can’t control your temper and they will think you are nothing but a drunktard hothead and not care at all about you, we don’t want you to ruin the image of this place.”

The man didn’t say anything, but all of his body was telling a lot to him. He went from someone who was ignoring him to someone who was ready to go out at any moment and if he does that Henrique wins, if he ends up getting hit by the man, well, he technically loses but his point stands.

“Did I hit a nerve? Don’t worry. You can be a great person to be liked and followed, if even I can have some people listening to me, you can...”

“Look at that! Our guest is trying to make Ricardo a better man!”

This voice was really similar to the man he was talking with, Henrique turned to see who was the new face around.

It was someone who was wearing similar clothing as the so-called Ricardo, the only difference was the beanie and clothes colors, Fabiano had more dark looking colored clothing, while this one had white clothes and the beanie was light blue. He was smiling and upbeat right next to the barman and the two people who got beat up by Yu. These two were looking a bit worried.

“Thank you very much for coming. I’ve been eager to discuss with you.”

“I take it you are the owner of this club?”

“You betcha! Me and my little bro are the owners of this place. Well I am the one who’s commanding everything.”

The man raised his hand for a handshake. Henrique saw no issue with handshaking so he shook his hand, the man had a tight and firm grip despite all the smiles and inoffensive look. The priest quickly released his hand after the handshake, he didn’t want to anger a mob boss by challenging him or keep holding his hand for too long, he wasn’t like a certain blond looking bastard that would be cocky even in this kind of situation.

“My name is Jailson Silva.”

“Henrique, nice to meet you. Looks like you’ve received my notification.”

“The boys made sure to tell me. Why don’t we go to my office? I’m sure there will be a lot of space for everyone to sit down.”

“How about you two? Feeling better?”

The two men behind Jailson didn’t reply; they looked at their boss as if they were mad at him so instead replying they would fold their arms.

“Come on, boys. The good man is being polite and you three know each other. I’m sure everything would have gone perfectly fine. They are _águas passadas_ , water under the bridge.”

The bearded man mumbled something in Portuguese, Henrique didn’t mind, it wasn’t the first time people wanted to beat him up and couldn’t do anything about it. 

“Yes, I’m feeling better.”

The tattooed man did the same and replied almost the same way, but he was looking around, he noticed that Yu wasn’t with him and whispered to Jailson.

“Bruno is asking where your daughter is, she must have given a hell of an impression.”

“She is not my daughter and she went to search for you so we could talk, she should be somewhere around here.”

Jailson started looking around the room with a silly smile of his, Henrique was being observed by the two persons who got beat up and the barman. Ricardo grabbed the glass Henrique set aside after being called and started drinking.

“She wouldn’t happen to be the girl who is dancing with the band, is she?”

“You gotta be kidding me.”

He points to the show area where the band was playing, he wasn’t paying as much focus, he had given her one task. Not that the music was bad, but he could clearly see that she was dancing with some other person. She didn’t know how to dance and she looked awful at dancing but the other person seemed to make up for it, slowly but steadily, other groups of people were starting to join the dance as well. It was almost becoming a mess of people going to dance to the song.

“At least she has good musical taste. Don’t be mad at her, after all, I invited her to dance for starters. She saw me and asked me a lot of questions until Pedro decided to tell me that you were talking with Ricardo.” He pointed at the Barman Pedro with his thumb. “You can go back to the bar, I can’t imagine what they will be trying to do without any supervision.”

“She did?” Henrique looked at the mob boss and then at the girl that for some she would be looking goofy and bad at doing those dancing moves, but Henrique saw her dance fearless, like she was training to get better and mimicking what the other dancer was doing and she managed to locate one of the two owners which he didn’t know there were two. He couldn’t help but to grin for a few seconds for her feat before yelling at her to get back here. 

That didn’t work. Either the music was too loud or she was too concentrated on finishing this one dance loud made her get lost in the looking back at Jailson.

“It can’t be helped. It’s okay to wait for the music to end?”

“Of course, Henrique. This song is timeless and one of anthems in Brazil! I never heard anyone to ever complain about it.”

“It has a good rhythm, I can give you that.” He tapped his feet not in discontent, they had half of the trouble solved by finding the leaders of the gang, but in sync with what they’ve been playing. 

The way it was being sung almost reminded them of the raindrops falling, and before he realized, the song was already over and another one was ready to start, but it that music wasn’t getting out of his head now. He didn’t mind, he called Yu and she finally noticed him waving at her which she started to walk towards him.

“Santy, did you see it?”

“Yes, you danced pretty great for someone who lost track of their goals. You should stay focused.”

He flicked her forehead believing that this way she would stop acting like that, but that was never the case.

“Now that everyone is here. We should go to my office… Do you want to put this parasol somewhere? I’m sure we could use a bin to store it somewhere.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” Henrique quickly replied before Yu started to have a say on anything. 

“Really? Well, if you say so.”

With that said the two thugs, Jailson and Ricardo led them to a room, for some reason he couldn’t tell, Ricardo was putting him on his nerves for looking like a downer. Yu did a thumbs up to the thugs and they looked uncomfortable doing the same after their boss told them to.

They led them once again to another corridor, this one was bigger than the entrance and there were rooms that had large windows that could be seen through the corridor.

There were people in there, but unlike the bar and band, they weren’t having a fun time drinking or dancing, but working with logistics, papers and money, a lot of money being counted. It didn’t help that the corridor had more people with uniforms, even if they were sitting playing cards or reading magazines, the duo was clearly overwhelmed by them and the huge amount of cameras and people.

After walking for two minutes on their way to an elevator, which was enough to put everyone and plus three other people, at least that’s what the sign on it said. Inside of it, the elevator music also was about the same musical genre. A change of pace to the usual music that bored Henrique everytime he had to take an elevator, he didn’t have trouble entering with the parasol in there. 

But he knew that now they were going to be talking away from the other members, everything was about to get serious. There will be no room for mistakes. 

The moment was now, even if it was in this packed elevator making him feel like a sardine.


	4. A meeting and a collection.

Yu was feeling a bit weird, after all she was all excited and had fun listening to the music and dancing to it, but remembered herself of the mission and now was in the middle of this elevator and it was pretty awkward feeling since everyone was quiet and there were a mix of expressions, Santy was looking as Santy, the man who danced with her was looking confident, the others didn't seem to be in a good mood at all, what a mixed kind of feeling inside of there that was.

“So that bike in the parking lot is yours?” Santy asked to bright up the mood as Jailson pressed the button to reach the 3rd floor.

“So you saw Maria?”

“You gave a name to your motorbike?”

“I didn’t. This is Ricardo’s. I drive a jeep. The stupid kid thinks he can get a better breeze driving it”

Ricardo didn’t say anything, Henrique knew the guy just wanted to keep on drinking and not talk about his bike or be around his brother giving a few jabs, so he shrugged “It’s a good bike. It’s in a good state and all..”

“Thanks, I guess I had to work hard on it.”

“Yeah, they always give trouble but the result is always worthy. I used to have one too, but I had to retire her. A real piece of beauty if I may say.”

“I thought it was just a bunch of pieces of metal.”

Jailson and the other two thugs laughed at the oblivious remark that Yu made, which resulted in Henrique flicking her forehead once again. “What’s up with you? Learn how to read the mood, brat.”

Luckily for Yu, they reached the desired floor before Santy could do another flicking or bonking her with the parasol, The man she danced with led the way to a a brown wooden door and gently pushed the yellow knob, opening the door to his office. Inside of it there was an anti-noise glass window that allowed them to see the bar part of the 1st floor. But that didn’t stop the music from playing inside the room as there was a radio in there playing it.  
“What is the name of this genre?” Asked Yu after Jailson closed the curtains of the window.

“Bossa Nova. It is a mix of Jazz and Samba. Something that was the essence of music, now not everyone listens to is as used to. But everyone in here likes it.”

There were couches inside of it. A shelf with a few collection trophies and a table which Yu could see a few nice looking transparent jar full of seashells, a few actual trophies made of gold, well, Santy taught her that it was mostly made of bronze, but that didn’t come to her mind, pictures of this smiling mister and the sad looking mister with someone, and lastly and not least, she could see a peculiar looking rock that was on the man’s desk.

The Bearded and Tattooed man stood behind them as they closed the door. Ricardo took a seat on the table instead of the chair. Yu never understood why people would do that. It doesn’t help the back, people try to show off they own the table and the room. He didn’t motion for Santy or Yu to take a sit or anything, he grabbed a glass and drank it and the look of joy on him from drinking it was almost like she was seeing an ad, she thought that Santy was thinking that he was wasting everyone’s time by not starting to talk.

“100% Orange Juice. Natural, it’s delicious. I always drink one before starting any meeting. Do any of you want some?”

“I’m good, thank you.”

“What about you? You danced a lot just now and I heard you two walked all the way from town to get here.”

“I’m fine. If I had to drink something every time I had to do a lot of movements I would be drinking since yesterday.”

She saw Santy’s look and already knew what he was thinking about.

“If you two are sure of it. That’s about it. Now, tell me. Why do two people who have no ties with any gang or the underworld decide to go ask around about our club? I know people want to get here and work and others to pay for some services, yet you two don’t fill the quota of what we expect and still ask all around town about us? We are no fast food franchise to be treated like this and there’s more.”

He points to the two men who got beat up by Yu, the man was still smiling, that smile was never a friendly one. It was one of someone who was angry but couldn’t do anything so they had to smile.

“You have the guts to harm our employees when they tried to stop you from causing more suspicions to us and force a meeting like this to happen? So tell me why shouldn’t we beat the crap out of you?”

“There would be another way to find you without sending this message? Possibly, but would have worked? No.”

“If you had the right means to find us you could have found us.”

“Sorry for the disturbance, but I’m here for one purpose. Getting back something that has been taken from a laboratory of sorts so we’ve been called here to investigate.”

“Are you calling me a thief?!”

“No, but the ones that called me to investigate? Yes. So I have come here to make sure you and your guys aren’t the one.”

“So you two are mercenaries? I didn’t find any kind of info from my people.”

“Not exactly, but we can assure that Iscariote will get involved once they are aware of what is involved.”

“That’s a good attempt of a joke, we got them in our bills. Is not like they would want trouble with us.”

“That’s where you are wrong, there are Iscariote members and there are the Iscariote members. The ones that would come overseas, those are the ones that can’t be bribed and usually are a bunch of insane people except for two members, hence why they are the most dangerous.”

The man was drinking once again the glass of orange juice. But he wasn't as smiley as before, more worried and the two men were staring at each other, the whole room felt intense and dangerous, Santy had just told them about them and she took a chance to look at the others, but she was elbowed by Santy for her to pay attention.

Those tiny silent seconds felt like ages, but the monotony was broken by Jailson as he started laughing once again but Santy was laughing too, of course it was one of his forced laughs, but he was so good at it.

“As if those would pass by in here. You know how to break the ice, Henrique.”

“By the way, what is that rock near you?”

“This? Nothing but a paper weight that I got recently as a gift.”

“May I check it. I need to see if it’s that good in my office.”

“Go ahead.” The man tossed the rock and Santy didn’t manage to grab it, after all he wasn’t on his prime, but Yu got it without breaking a sweat, actually it was pretty easy for her.

Once that she got this rock on her hands it definitely felt different than other rocks. More smooth and less rocky, almost as if it was an egg, but not only that, she could feel energy from it, almost as if she was holding something magical. 

“It’s weird.”

“I know right? that’s why I decided to keep around.”

“Let me give a look at it, Yu.” She didn’t hesitate and passed the rock to Santy who passed the hand on the object too and in exchange he gave her the parasol. It wasn’t heavy at all, but he had held long enough and he would need two hands to examine it.

But he was taking a lot to check it, she could see the man was getting impatient so she took a chance to ask about the man’s collection of seashells. 

“Ah that? This is my pride and joy.” He looked at the collection and then at a picture, it seemed that he didn’t look at that picture for a while before he could resume talking about it.

He was proud of it, saying he started collecting them when he was an infant, praising his own efforts and asking her if she was a collector as well.

“Yes. I found this seashell when we were walking this morning at the beach. She picked from her pocket while still holding the parasol with the other.

The man approached and whistled at the seashell she found. He was impressed, how weird, she thought, for a grown up to be so fascinated by it. 

“This is a rare find. Look at those details, it looks so different and is nothing like I’ve seen before. I don’t think there’s anything like this even if we search upon the whole Corcovado!”

"Thanks, mister Jailson."

"So Jailson, would it be okay for us to take this?"

"This paper weight isn't for sale. I’m not going to give anything even if it’s to trick your contractor. This hasn’t been stolen. This was gifted.”

“By who?”

“Ricardo himself.” 

The man gestures to his brother who was paying attention to them since the moment they were inside the room. He seemed worried and bothered, for Yu this was enough proof that he had stolen the rock. But she wondered what Santy would do to get the rock through a convincing means which could be anything, knowing him, she knew he would have something under his sleeve.

“What about if we make a trade, The paper weight for the seashell? It’s a rare one, didn’t you say? It must be more valuable for you than this rock.”

“What?” That’s unfair! I looked so hard for it! He didn’t even had seen what she had looked for.

“Really? Are you sure of that?”

“Of course. That would be better, wouldn’t?”

The man started to take into consideration what he was saying. However his brother got up of the couch he was on.

“Jailson, no. Think of what I gave to you, it isn’t anything that you should be tossing aside.”

“Ricardo, I’m making business with the gentleman here.”

“God dammit, you idiot.”

Yu believed that it was hard for him to get that just like she had a lot of trouble to find something beautiful like that and couldn’t show to him even.

“Santy…”

“Yu, can I see the seashell? You don’t need to give it to me.”

She showed it to him, reluctantly, she wanted him to see but not like that as if they were about to give it to someone in exchange. If he said he wouldn’t take it.

He could see the light pink seashell. The format was like any common seashell people would find at the beach, but its details were nothing alike; it had red and blue details on it. Almost as if they were painted with a brush, but no signs of it. the inside of the seashell was light blue and a few tunes of orange, as if it was a bright blue sky with a few clouds on it as the day would end.

“It’s really pretty, isn’t?”

Santy was looking with more interest and care than the stone that he had on his hands. Yu couldn’t tell what was on his mind but he pulled her next to him.

“Well, your brother doesn’t want you to give it to me even if this is an exchange, I wouldn’t give a crap about his opinion. But after giving a closer look at it. I’m not really sure if I should give it to you just like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means there’s no stakes, no battle, no challenges. Wouldn’t that be a bit of an empty achievement? One that you didn’t get to do anything except wait for someone to come at your door and ask about it.”

He gave a small glance to the trophies the man had, which made him look behind and finally stop sitting on the table, knowing that Mister Jailson put to a stop on prejudicing his column was relieving, but made him look more happy than what he was already looking.

“I’m listening.”

“How about we make a bet? The winner gets the item that the other wants. Plain and simple as everything should be.”

“Mercenaries like you really like to bet whatever you can and whatever you want to get the bounty aren’t you two?”

“Isn’t the same for ‘companies’ owners like yourself?”

The man smirked at that remark, this had

“That settles it. We are going to play a game. if I win, you give me this pretty seashell, if you win, I’ll give you this paperweight to let you trick the guy who hired you.”

Santy looked confident, whenever he was looking like that was simply showing that he had the man under his palm. Well, most of the time he knew what to say or do to give another option more favourable to both of them instead of getting in trouble.

“Sounds like an excellent deal, amigo. Count me in.”

“So what game will it be?”

“It’s like what they say. No pain, no gain. With that scar of yours in your cheek, I’m sure you are a seasoned fighter.”

Santy’s right cheek had a long and ugly scar, it has been there since the first time Yu had met him, she asked how he got that scar and usually would grumble about asking people about their scars isn’t nice, but since isn’t problematic as Santy had seen a lot of things, he never went into too much details about it. But he always said that it was the mark when he became brave, she laughed when he said that and flicked her forehead.

“¿Qué Narices?” This surprised both Santy and Yu, she thought they would have a match of card games that she saw some playing and getting excited over, a race or something of the like, not a fight, Yu noticed the sibling looked annoyed.

“Yes. Ricardo, how about it? You get to fight an old geezer, let’s see if you can beat this random mercenary. If you win, we get to keep your gift and you get me something else, if you lose. It was just a paper-weight anyway.”

“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. That would be problematic for me to get into battle and such. I’m no brute. I leave this to my partner right here.”

“Qué?” She had her forehead flicked once again. 

“Are you copying me now?” 

“No, I’m just learning like you did. It’s funny to see you talk in Spanish. It’s rare to see you speaking your first language.”

Santy stopped for a while and then flicked her forehead for no reason! Her forehead would be all red if he kept doing this the rest of the night! 

“Think of it like any other thing we’ve dealt with. Do what you know best and after that I tell you where you didn’t do it right.”

“Like always? So I can show them, right now and get ready for battle?”

“Show what?” Asked Ricardo, completely clueless about what he was about to witness in first hand along side everyone else in that room except for Santy.

“Yu, wait, no!”

But it was too late. The girl pressed the button of the closed Parasol and it finally opened.

The Parasol had been destroyed. The top of it and its cover tore into sheds. 

It was nothing but a mechanism to hide what was inside of it. 

A Qiang, a chinese spear, under it. Made with all care and perfection of a ginkgo wood with pointy and precise blade at its end, having nothing to separate it except for a few small cell phone accessories of a brown bear and a smiley dice.

Santy covered his face as everyone else in the room looked shocked and surprised by it, the two thugs pulled out guns while the brothers gave a step back as Yu was already taking a stance to fight.

“So that is why you didn’t want to store the parasol.”

“More of her not letting anyone besides me hold it.”

“And if we said no you would kill us?”

“No, I’m not some trigger happy blondie who would be up to punch and shoot people before actually talking. You can't solve everything the old way.”

Santy was saying that, but most of his friend’s strategies ended up working even if they were less peaceful. She cleansed her mind after thinking of it, she would have to fight that man with a beanie and having other things clouding it would make her lose focus.

“Amigos, put the guns down. Let’s take them to the arena.” He placed his hand on Santy’s shoulder before drinking another glass of orange juice “You freelancers do know how to cause a lot of surprises don’t you?”

Jailson went to the table and pulled a microphone from there he pressed a button on it. 

“Ladies and gentlemen. We are going to host an off schedule event. I’ll meet each one of you at the Arena. You know how to get there, I’ll meet each one of you there.” He turned off the mic, but he still looked confident on it.

“You like to bring crowds to it. I wish this could be more discreet.”

“My house, my rules.”

“You are right.”

They were now surrendered by the four men, the thugs were in the front while the brothers were in the back, You didn’t really understand why since the two in front of them got easily beaten so let them lead the way was weird.

And once again they went to the elevator, this time the thugs were smiling instead of looking nervous. she could tell they were looking forward to see her fighting again, that only gave more adrenaline to act.

And once again she would feel like a fish in a small pond. If she were the owner of this club she would make two elevators, now that was a good business choice, however she was not and suggesting that would get her forehead flicked again and that was not the time. It was time to work!


	5. The girl and the Werewolf.

This time the elevator was going down to the underground. Around what looked like a garage, but with highlights covering the floor and showing a path. Even if it was a short path she could see that there were handrails to not let people fall to the floor below and stairs leading there. It did look like an area with a few fences and from there the duo could see the werewolves vibrating as the Bossa Nova played in the background, like an actual gladiator arena, but in a parking lot and instead of humans watching it, lycanthropes were and instead of having nothing except an empty arena, there were big tubes, machines, and a broken car in there. Almost like it also was a course of obstacles. 

Getting the petrified egg was getting a bit tougher than she would expect, but she was enjoying it, this was a chance to show Santy the pay off of the training she was performing all this time.

“This is where the VIP will be watching, also known as me and your dad.”

“Ele não é meu pai!”

“You know portuguese?”

“And much more.” 

“I’ll take it as yes even if I don’t understand what you said, was it Chinese?” 

“She’s like that when she feels offended or when she is upset.”

“Sorry, menina. Anyway, are you ready for it? I’m sure Ricardo is ready, right?”

The man jumped off the handrail and landed right on the top of the broken car, making the audience next to it go wild and yell in joy. Yu noticed that the younger brother looked happier with the audience going for him.

It’s at that moment there was a big screen right in front of Santy, Jailson and the two thugs showing lights and cameras, it looked like what she saw in the movies about martial art tournament movies, but this time was real.

“I hope she’s ready, he is osso duro de roer..”

What was that supposed to mean?”

“He’s one tough cookie.”

“This doesn’t help her. He’s saying that he’s strong.”

“Ah! It 's okay. I’m strong too.”

“We’ll see. Well, wish you luck, you will need it.”

The girl was thinking of jumping the handrail, but she didn’t want to end up being called a copycat, she decided to jump on the handrails and slide all the way down while still keeping her stance all the way to the arena.

The man finally looked excited, but it was during those moments of being excited when people reached their loss. all she has to do is win and to never underestimate your enemy, no matter the experience.

Show-off.

That’s what Henrique had in mind when he saw Yu going all the way down, making the crowd go even wilder.

He was expecting a fight, but he didn’t take into consideration that they would hold a ring under their own headquarters. Werewolves were something he will never understand.

“Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the arena. Tonight we have Ricardo against a Foreigner, Yu! Who will be the winner? Who will be the one going home in a litter? We are about to find out!”

There was a bell noise somewhere and before he had realized the two in the arena were already going at each other. Ricardo was fast, looking like a blur as Yu also ran towards him, but not mindless running in one direction she was taking the right steps to not lose momentum and save energy as she went in zigzag, learning about the environment she was in. After all seeing the inside and being inside were entirely different. 

Henrique could pinpoint an opening in the werewolves charge, but wouldn’t tell. She needed to figure it out on her own. But it didn’t take long until the arm of Ricardo to go at her, she managed to block the charge with her spear and kick him to one of those weird machines, not before his other arm pulled her leg to make her fall on the floor and hit her rear on the cold pavement, but she didn’t fall as she had the spear to support her and use it to poke Ricardo’s arm, but that took a bit of the dress clothing that was next to her thigh.

“She could have avoided the grab, damnit.”

“Don’t worry, this is just the start. Enjoy as Ricardo starts warming up and going at her for real.”

“I’ll let you root for your brother and I’ll root for my girl.”

“By the way what’s your girl’s magic expertise?”

“She doesn’t really have one.”

“What? This means you two are complete normal people devoid of it?”

“You asked about her. Just like every human, they do have mana running through their veins, even if it’s a small amount, but some have more intense than others. Her family was one that specialized in hunting down beasts…” He said all of that without taking the eyes off the battle as Ricardo got back up.

Yu was the one going at him, she might not be the best student of all time, but it was his first and last only student, and instead of using the blade to attack him, she was using the wood. After all, it’s the feeling of using the blade of the spear that would put others on alert, using the back part makes them less careful since they won’t risk getting cut by the spear.

The battle had only begun when he barely could listen to whatever they were talking down there, how many times he had told her to not be talking with the enemy. But he could feel a bit of relief that she was leaving almost no opening, almost. 

He couldn’t access well what those machine-like things were meant to do or be, but she was awfully close to them, and Ricardo managed to go at her. That adult man was starting to transform, his pants were getting torn apart and his legs changing and getting more muscly and covered by a grey fur.

“You are letting him transform, you shouldn’t do that! At this pace he...”

He didn’t even manage to finish the sentence, the werewolf started charging at her. Making her back down, but that didn’t stop from getting charged by the monster. pushing her a few meters away from the machine, but hitting the car.

“What are you doing? You aren’t supposed to be doing these types of moves!”

Of course she wouldn’t be hearing him, and she better not be trying to read his lips if she were. Ricardo was getting bigger and stronger, the transformation was almost full and she would be at disadvantage.

But that didn’t mean that the match was over, far from it. Yu was still holding the spear closely to her, yet she wasn’t holding it hesitantly, she was waiting for the Werewolf to come at her.

She was looking closely at the strong points of Mister Ricardo's body. Something she had learned, you should never go to the weak point, they will always try to protect that part, then you should weaken their strong parts. She could see he wasn’t trying to hurt her with his arms and fangs, but also could see that his legs were giving him more movement and approach even more.

The way he was looking was taller than her. He already was tall, but the transformation was letting him get even taller.

“Mr. Ricardo, you really want to win.”

“Yeah, why else would I be doing this?”

“You must have had a lot of trouble to steal that rock from Mister Bruno, haven’t you?”

Ricardo stopped for a moment trying to understand what she just had said, then resumed to go at her. “You can’t trick me with those mercenary talks. Taunting me like this won’t do.”

The man that was almost covered in fur, couldn’t really be seen anymore, nothing but a blur and being rapid as the wind went at her and in a matter of seconds, she thought it could prevent the hit from the werewolf going right behind her at the top of the car and tried to take her lance from her hands, he failed at fulfilling it, but he managed to get his ‘feet’ at her shoulder, kicking her around the arena, rolling and stumbling on the floor and getting at one of the machines in the area.

“So he didn’t take it from Mister Bruno.” She was monologuing even when it wasn’t necessary to tell this. “So how did you get it?”

The werewolf didn’t reply, the man’s clothing was all torn up, everything about that man had changed, he even had gotten a fluffy tail, except for his eyes, they still remained the same color and once again all she could see was the blur figure coming at her.

She tried to move her injured shoulder but it was stiff, but she could keep the stance despite the pain, it was endurable, even if hurt a bit she could take what was needed. If she could see the pattern of Ricardo coming at her, she had a counter attack ready for him.

She could see the blur coming at her, but she didn’t know if he had arriving which side of her, all she could have take was a guess, and that only guess was her shoulder, so she hadn’t time to lose, Santy was seeing her put the training he put on her and she wouldn’t make it go to waste, after all she made a promise and was willing to fulfill it.

She could see the advance of the blur at her, and she could show him and everyone else watching at the arena that she also has some aces under her sleeve, even if she had no cards under her dress.

Instead of trying to dodge or roll to the side away from her attacker, she kicked at the direction of her attacker. Just like how she had learned when she was smaller, her right leg hit the lycantropes’s left arm and not spending no time to wait for a reaction or any other words, the clothing even it had been a bit destroyed on her legs, it wouldn’t bother her getting more ripped apart, she used her other leg to hit Ricardo’s chin, even if he had transformed into a werewolf, the chin was still a fragile part of the body, but she missed it, hitting only his cheek.

The audience went quiet for a moment as Ricardo got pushed back, but she wouldn’t give a room to breathe as he did for her. This was a fight, and the purpose of all fights was to win.

When he cursed her with a bad word as he started to run again, she changed the position of her spear, letting the blade be on her side, ready for another strike but this time on the monster’s thigh, and from what she had to study with one of the books Santy made her read, hitting the tail was also painful for them, so she attempted to push the non-metallic part of the blade to hit the tail and make sure to not let him escape.  
Another yelp from the monster but now he would turn to her trying to hit his right claw at Yu, she decided to attempt dodging to her right but going forward at him, which albeit wasn’t fast enough to get unscathed, and have her ribs being hit by his cut and the first drops of blood dripping from there, she still went forward at him and now holding only one hand the spear.

This free hand had the palm open and she didn’t say anything, her eyes were full of determination and ready to hit him with all fingers together and about to hit him in full, Ricardo swept his legs to break her stance out of instinct and desperation, how a human like her was being able to read him and be as fast as him? He couldn’t understand. He didn’t want to lose, but didn’t want to kill her. But still, to let her get so close was dangerous and as he hit her legs, it worked for him, but he didn’t expect for her to use the spear with the stiff arm to not let her fall on the fall flat, but to fall in his direction. 

It wasn’t supposed to be a strong hit by the looks of it, her expression of pain of using the stiff arm was showing, she wouldn’t be able to hit his chest, Ricardo was sure that was her goal, but that was where he was wrong. She used her strength to hit his leg, the pressure of it, was enough let him get down just like her, but she still went ahead and despite the grumble she used the spear once again to hit him on his chest, making him land in one of those machines which a small broken noise could be listen from it and a bit of a misty cloud came from it, hiding the shock that Ricardo receive.

Yu got back up and got back on her battle stance, her opponent came from the mist, but he couldn’t walk much, the pressure point that had been inflicted on his leg made him get on his knees and just stop attempting to move forwards.

“You don’t look so tall now, Mister Ricardo.”

The audience started roaring in surprise and how amazing how fast the match had turned out to be. It was so loud she couldn’t listen to the song playing when their fight was happening.

“Are you okay, Mister Ricardo?”

“Just give me a few minutes.. Damnit, it was so hard to find that thing and buy. But a match is a match, you did well.”

“You bought it?”

“Yeah, from a mage, I thought it would be nice to show to give to my brother, but he didn’t care.”

“I think he cared a lot?”

“He uses it as paper-weight.”

“In his office! This means he appreciated what you bought for him! This shows you are someone of trust even if he doesn’t know what they are for!” She pointed to her spear with the two cellphone accessories. “I got one from a friend who is at the Vatican and the other from Santy. Since we always move to different places. we can’t stay at home, so I take them with me.” 

The man didn’t reply to her, but nodded at her, she looked at the VIP place where Santy and Jailson were. She noticed them looking at her and she waved at them. Leaving her stance.

Henrique gave a deep sigh.

“You missed 4 openings and was 9 times open and easily capable of being defeated right away!”

The girl seemed to celebrate and gave a peace sign. She wouldn’t be able to listen to him and her mistakes, but he couldn’t help but to give a small smile as she looked satisfied, managing to show that she is good and he was relieved that she was fine.

Jailson performed a wolf whistle. “She doesn’t play around, to defeat a werewolf? How did she do that?”

“I taught her to be good at that. I’m not strong alone without a few tricks, but I got a good eye, she has a good eye and, unlike me, she is strong but has no idea how to learn or what to do. So that’s where I get in.”

“Well, a promise is a promise. Congratulations. This was impressive, Henrique.”

“I did nothing.”

“But you managed to call our attention and give a hell of a night. If you have spare time, you could teach one of my boys to get at least one tenth of Yu there.”

“Sorry, I don’t give coaching or training to anyone. This girl alone is already a lot of trouble to take care of, imagine a bunch of hairy people, but thanks for the offer.”

The man gave the rock on his hands while the other two people were still down there and Jailson started talking to the audience with the microphone he had on his hands. 

Henrique waited for the girl to come at him, she placed the man on her and was trying to bring him there, the half naked man, which still had a bit of his pants left on somehow, was stumbling even with the support he was receiving until they got upstairs, she saw them talking all the way over there. It couldn’t be helped, it didn’t matter whoever she fought or who had to deal with. 

She would still talk to them and even if she didn’t get the figure of speech of many different languages she would still have that contagious positivity on others, not that would stop her from kicking their butts or do more than that. She left him on a chair before finally going at him holding the spear.

“You saw it, Santy? I did it!”

“Yeah, Yeah, I saw it all. I would make you work on what you need to improve, but we still have work to do.” 

He gave a pat on her non-stiff arm, took the spear from her hands, not that she had any resistance to do anything against it, she knew it was his time to make a quick check on her, as usual after she does the heavy work he would always look at her injuries and take care of her. 

“It’s nothing but a scratch, I’m fine, really just a stiff arm, a few injuries on the leg and a cut!” Henrique could see clear as day she was trying to look good on him. He didn’t care, luckily he had brought ointments to pass on any injuries that they would have, just like his partner, he had something under his sleeve. they were possibly the only two people from Iscariote that would have more things hiding under their shirts than a safe, but unlike his partner who is now in London, he wouldn't be having as many weapons or distractions.

“I’m glad you have spats under the dress or people would think you were some kind of a pervert.” commented Jailson “You can’t beat a werewolf and be calm like that. What the hell happened to him?” He pointed at his brother still trying to get off his seat but not being able out of it.

“Ah! That? It’s a martial art technique! You make your hand be like this and… ouch!”

“You can explain when I’m finished, for the love of all that’s good, just stay still for a second you still move and jump around like a monkey.”

The girl tried to stand still for a few seconds but couldn’t, it took him a few tries to finally place a bandage on her, he had to flick her forehead a few times to make her stop.

“Are you fine?”

“I am! I can tell you how I did it! It’s fine, you only need this formation with your palm and channelize your energy and…!” 

She performed a similar move that she did, it felt incredibly fast and stopped right in front of Jailson. Even with his reflexes and superhuman capabilities of being a werewolf, he didn’t notice or couldn’t see the strike coming. He usually sees, but the moment she did the move he noticed how serious and different the girl looked even if the palm was right next to his chest. It almost felt like the air itself bended for her to get this close even if she wasn’t fine.

“See? Like this.” She had resumed her happy and goofy smile. 

“You stupid girl, you want to give him a heart attack?!” Henrique pulled her other arm which made her flinch.

“You taught this to her?”

“I taught her a few things, but that? No. That’s something she learned before knowing me. I can’t do that even if I wanted to. But I do know a few other things.”

“Well, then. You two never cease to surprise me. Anyway, you two need this paper-weight to trick your boss right? Do you want a ride?”

“We can get a ride?”

“You two have been interesting and brought me entertainment. We could even make you join the gang if you wanted, honorable members even! You may ask anything for this night”

“No thank you, I don’t want to get tattoos.”

“Tattoos?”

“Yeah, that’s what gangs do, right?”

Jailson and Ricardo laughed “You think we are some sort of bandits gang? No, no. We don’t do that. We’re just a group of werewolves. That 's all. A Safe place for people of this city to come and have some fun. We protect our kin at all costs. You know how it is, right?”

That was weird to listen to even as a concept, but not something far off to understand and see why others would consider it as some vile gang but no vampires, that was weird.

“I know, you must be thinking why we don’t follow any bats, right? Well, that’s because they decided to go to other cities since the capital city changed a few decades ago and abandoned this place, but time to time they do send people, but we have a business relationship with them, not of a servant and master as I heard. We fought back with everything we had, pops sacrificed himself, and we won. the underdogs won even if we weren’t supposed to. Sorry I got distracted.”

“It’s fine, that’s something different, but I’m glad you guys manage to stay together like a family... So, that bike? You could let us take a ride on it?”

“You’ll get them back in one piece?”

“Of course I will. I used to drive those when I was younger” The tone and smug he gave himself was something he was proud of. 

“So what do you say, Ricardo? Henry here wants to give a ride on it and seems ready for it.”

Ricardo was still seated on the bench, his brother wanted him to take a decision and think about it, that was something he never really took importance or thought as something important, but now he could see that even if it was something minor, his brother cared.

“Sure. But I want it back with no scratches.”

Henrique gave a thumbs up signaling and sealing the contract. Getting to the bike wasn’t tough, passing through Yago was weird since he was there but looked nervous upon seeing his boss and him together, Yu gave him a wave which he gave one back. Actually getting to the bike gave him a bit of nostalgia since he didn’t get on one in a while since some events in the past. He gave a helmet that was under the seat to Yu, since there was only one.

“Are you fine with not having any?”

“Trust me, I’m good with those.”

“Santy, every ad about people who don’t wear helmets says this line.”

“Sure, whatever.”

“Hey, Ricardo said to not mess with the radio, not that it will change much. Hope you guys like more music as you go trick that boss of yours.”

“Thanks, Jailson. Catch you later.”

He looked at his watch and it was almost 2 A.M. “The road is probably empty and Bruno is waiting for us. Are you ready, Yu?”

“As always, Santy!” Upon hearing the always, he turned the engine on and after getting a hold of how to hold, the radio started to play some music, unlike the other jazz like, it was more of a rock song, Henrique didn’t mind as he used to listen a lot when he used to drive his bike, the Motorbike even said the name of the song Independencia from Capital Inicial, Yu was humming the tune as he drove in the empty road as they made their way back to the beach in search of that bar at the start of the day.

“You know, Santy.”

“What?”

“Thank you for not just making a trade of the seashell, even if they weren’t bad people despite having an arena to beat each other up, I would be upset if you....”

“Stupid, as if I would let your hardwork go to waste because of some work. You had a keen eye noticing his collection.”

“You taught me that I need to look around and be aware of how to proceed.”

“Yeah, I looked at the trophies and figured out how to carry on. Why the sudden talk? Are you finally getting asleep? I told you that we would have a long day.”

“He wouldn’t have minded just exchanging the items, but you still wanted me to keep the seashell. There aren’t many people who would have done that, I just wanted to say thank you, Santy.”

Henrique didn’t reply, she was right on that. Knowing the type Jailson was, he would have called it a day as some business to do. But doing everything by the book wasn’t the answer. After all, why follow the book if sometimes doing that doesn’t solve anything at all?! He didn’t want to work with this, he was forced. So if he was going to do things, he would do his way, it has always been like that.

He used to drive way above the speed limit and do dangerous turns, he knew how to ride a bike and surprise people, but Yu was the only one who wouldn’t whine or complain how he was driving, so there was no reason for it. Just following the limit as the songs played during the ride to the beach with the gentle breeze hit them as they went. He looked at the sky far away from the city and the beach, he could see a clean starry sky. He wondered when it was the last time he looked at a sky like this.


	6. Not an exorcist

After riding for 30 minutes, Santy got to park the bike not far away. He told Yu that no one would try to steal that at this hour of the night otherwise the robbers will need to worry way more than themselves.

Her arm wasn’t hurting as the start of the trip, it was getting better again, despite the few scratches she was feeling fine as they started to walk past a few trees to get to the sands of the beach.

As for the beach: It was completely empty, no one to be seen next to the bar, in fact the bar itself was closed too. If it weren't for the sound of the waves resonating on the ears it could easily be mistaken for a desert. 

“I told him that we would be coming tonight. Damn mages.” Santy was acting like Santy, Yu was used to him complaining, but being at the beach at night was so different and calm. She didn’t plan to go for a swim, but for how warm it was, if it weren't for the mission and the spear she was holding.

“Well, you guys did say that you would get in here tonight. And you actually made it! That 's insane!” The familiar voice was coming from the rooftop of the bar. The duo turned to see the source and there he was. “I guess you two really are something. Sorry if I had to doubt you two.”

Bruno was standing there and soon jumped off the edge that wasn’t really tall and tripped to the sand. She could feel Santy ‘coughing’ to hide his laughter. She didn’t think it was funny, the man was not wearing his morning clothes anymore, he was wearing something even more extravagant to be at the beach. A long robe with different colored details that didn’t match any type of fashion, at least he wasn’t wearing sunglasses at night, that would make him look even sillier.

It took him for a moment to get back up and take off the sand on his face. They were a few meters apart.

“Sorry for the bar being closed and all, people would find it weird why I would have to wait there until God knows how long. So was it pretty tough to get there?”

“Not really, We’ve had to make some questions around town, but thanks to you, we lost time by asking the name of the wrong place. That cost us around 3 hours, but we managed.”

“Ah, my bad, Henrique. At least everything is fine and dandy, right, amigo?” He raised his arm smiling with the punchable face that he already had “Now you just need to hand over the petrified egg and we can get on with our lives just fine.”

Santy was the one holding the petrified dragon egg, even if it was dark, he did a hand sign that the girl could understand ‘get ready’. 

  
“You know, this mission has been pretty pleasant so far, we didn’t really have any problems performing it. But I noticed a few things off.”

“Well, that’s to be expected you had to go against those mutts who believe they own the place.”

“The lycantropes were the least of my worries, I couldn’t care less about their influence and power in here, but what I wonder is if you really had this robbed.”

“Of course I had, man. Why else would have contacted the...”

“Strange.” Santy didn’t even let the man finish the sentence. “Usually when something of this energy is stolen, there is something to track it down. You should’ve known better, Bruno.”

“So what? We didn’t have the resources for it.”

“But you had to put a magic wire in our doorstep.”

“I… don’t know what you are talking about, Henrique. It must have been the Werewolves, yeah. They would want to track down someone who was going after them.”

“That was my theory at first, but there’s one thing you failed to realize, Bruno.”

“What?”

“I never told you my name, when asking for services they never tell the name of who is coming either. The only place that someone could catch my name would be if they followed me and discovered the hotel and made a few asks about it and there we have it. My name.”

“Yu said your name! You just didn’t listen”

“She never calls me anything other than Santy, smartass.”

“I just wanted to make sure if you were going to fulfill your word!” Even if it was dark, Yu could notice the man was getting really angry, but that would make sense, none of the werewolves seemed to be really good at magic or something of the like.

“So I decided to come here and well, I think you went to a bar or went to drink with one of the brothers who liked to drink and he talked about it when he was drunk outside of that club and you, as clever as you are, called us so we could steal it for you and…”

“Shut up!”

The sands of the beach started to move a bit, the breeze was gentle, so it wasn’t possible to have them moving as if there was a fan under it.

“So what? I’ll use it better than just paper-weight! Paper-Weight! Do you know how rare, valuable and resource those are?! If I have this, my research will be complete and no one will ever challenge me.”

Santy gave a sigh of frustration “I really wish heretics weren’t like this, they think that their plans are the brightest. So since you just admitted to wanting to rob it, I’ll give it back to the respectful owners.”

“No you won’t!”

Bruno started saying something in portuguese, but Yu couldn’t pay too much attention as the sand in front of them was starting to form a creature, almost looking like a big guard, being almost as tall as the bar size, it was something they met in the past, but not made of sand and wood, it was normally used to protect workshops and places holding important artifacts. Two golems were formed in front of them.

“We can do it the easy way or in the hard way. Your choice, priest!”

Santy folded his arms looking around “So not only you attempted to use us to rob a valuable item and also are threatening to kill us. I’m starting to get new low levels of respect to heretics.”

Bruno yelled as the Golem started to slowly move at them. “I can take care of them and Mister Bruno.”

“You should rest on this one.”

“No, stopping right now would mean that I’ll be a liability. I can do this, Santy!”

“If you say so. I’ll take down the one made out of sand.”

“Okay! the first one to beat them up, get to go to catch Mister Bruno!.” She started running at the new found opponent without waiting for an answer. The golem made of wood looked like a huge toy, it was big and all you knew about it being a golem was the magic energy coming out of its core, that which Golem was put on a different place, it was all according to their creator.

For Bruno’s case, the core was located in a complicated place for people normally to reach, she could see that it was on its face due how bright and a bright shiny yellow showed the core of it. The whole body looked like logs of wood, she thought that if they put a karate robe they would look funny on that, but the Golem was slow, but their steps were heavy, it was totally the opposite of her previous fight when Mister Ricardo was fast, mister Log (the name she decided to give it to him) was slow.

“What? You think your parasol will do anything towards this? Don’t make me laugh, girlie.”

The girl didn’t give any attention to the mage, she was focused on taking the golem down and him later. He wasn’t a priority. This made the mage whine more for being ignored, but ...

Right after Luckily for her as the wooden golem approached and attempted to hit her, it was slow for her, its arm was strong to jump on and didn’t have rapid reflexes, she let the Golem attack her and see how it would work, each of their steps made the ground tremble, but she could see that it was only able to sustain itself thanks to the sand, if it was under any other terrain a small step or push it would fall into pieces.

She couldn’t see how Santy was doing, but knowing Santy, he was already waiting for her to finish the act and finish with this. After the fourth swing she jumped on its arm that tried to reach her. 

From there she could run on its arm, and she could hear the gasp surprise of Bruno as she used the precious spear to pierce the head of the golem with a simple swing. The enemy she fought wasn’t even something she could call a warm up, but she could feel her shoulder being in pain, but that wouldn’t be trouble.

She looked behind and saw Santy on his own against the Golem, he was dealing with it rather at ease, he wasn’t going neither too fast nor too slow, it was right on point, he may not have had the same mobility as she, but he had more experience and that’s how he managed to bait the golem to follow him to the seawater and slowly let itself decompose to the point there were only part of the torso and head left, incapable of moving any further and just like that he picked the core with his gloves on and the sand Golem had been defeated as well.

He didn’t even use magic, guns or any fight style he used to train her, just his legs. She was amazed by how he never ceased to have other techniques.

“What are you looking at? He’s running away!” She said it to herself, she couldn’t be wasting any more time.

She looked back and saw Bruno trying to run away by breaking the bar’s entrance with magic, Yu followed right after him. All she had to do now was to track him down. Once inside the bar, the mage had turned the light on and ran to the kitchen.

“Wait, mister Bruno!”

“Like hell I’ll wait, puta.”

“That was very rude.”

“Puta, puta, puta, puta!” Yu firmly believes he likes to say that bad word, she was looking around and something was off in the place. There were glasses crashing noises and broken glass and drinks poured all over the floor until the way to the kitchen. which The mage was in there holding a small orange mineral, a core, something that alchemists used to give life to inanimate objects that would protect their master, object or place of their desire. 

“I still have one core left, girl. You shouldn’t have come in here. All you two needed was to give me the damn stone. Look all you’ve done.”

“You made this mess and wanted us to take the blame, this is not good. Mister Bruno.” She got on her stance. “You will have to face the consequences of your actions, everyone needs to.”

“We’ll see about that! Toró Vocatus!”

Before he could throw it, Yu charged at him, even with the wet floor she glided through the broken glass and she hit the mage with the back of her spear right on his stomach, letting him drop the core and cover his stomach.

“It’s over.”

“No, no, no, no!”

“Tantrums won’t work, Mister Bruno.”

The mage in out of the act of desperation tried to grab the fallen core, only to have the hand be stabbed by the spear. He screamed in pain but he was laughing like an idiot.

“You don’t realize, do you, puta? What’s the best catalyst for magic when you don’t have anything?”

Blood. Even for the people who didn’t practice magic, their blood have mana running through them, people using mana from their own body would exhaust them, but blood that had been dropped is nobody’s owner so it was free to claim and use as magic.

She couldn’t do anything. The sound of the explosion was too loud, and both her and the mage were sent out of the wooden bar. If the walls were made of concrete, they surely would have died by the impact. The two were separated from the blow, but now they were back at the entrance of the bar. Bruno was getting up, but with his hand injured and trying to go for the door, and so did Yu. But at the moment she was getting up, she felt the heat and smell of her worst fear.

Fire.

Surrounded by flames. Just like she was when she was 7 years old 13 years ago. She couldn’t do anything about it other than hold tight to the family’s spear. She was there, at the mercy of the demons that had invaded her small district and the fire. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no place to be.

There were no options left.

Bruno took the opportunity of seeing the girl frozen in terror to grab her hair and throw her to the floor, even if she was holding the spear.

“Not looking so thought now? Was that? Afraid of fire?” said the demon in front of her before laughing at her. The little girl was on the floor. Even if the demon wasn’t strong, the fear was big enough to make it look like he was just playing with her. “If I can’t get what you want. I bet your spear must have something to cut down my golems!”

“Give me a break, already.”

“What?” 

And just like that passing through the middle of the fire, the priest with a scar on his right cheek passed through the flames and punched the demon away.

It was almost like the last time, but instead of coming from the door that was closed and shooting with a shotgun, this time he was bare handed. The way he looked at her was exactly like that time.

“Hey, it’s alright. I’ll get you out of here.” With the same smile, the only difference is that his hair was more gray than before.

Henrique was angry. Not for the fact Yu underestimated a pathetic heretic, she had done a good job, if were anyone else, he would have lost the battle right after this mess. 

What made him angry was that the heretic would go as far as trying to risk exposing the world of magic because of failing to rob a magical item. If they were going to do something, that they should do something which there weren’t any cameras. But what really made him angry was the fact they were going to take advantage of her fear and abuse her. And no one would let her cry or be sad.

The way he punched the mage out of the building was easy, now all he had was to push Yu out of the building and let her get a bit of air, the smoke wasn’t helping either.

The mage known as Bruno was in front of him with his hand bleeding and with cuts over him, and unlike his student, he wasn’t lucky and got cut by debris having his face full of cuts and still bleed.

“So what are you going to do Henrique?” He opened his arms and red lightning bubbles emerged around him, he was channeling his own blood into magic. Something that was forbidden not only by the Church and the Mage Agency as it was something vampires would perform, it’s self destructive and the side effects were numerous if you weren’t a creature of the night. “Everyone knows that Blood magic is stronger than whatever the Church has made!”

“You really are an idiot wanting power and more power aren’t you?”

“With the Petrified Dragon Egg I’ll be able to recover everything I’ve lost. So give it to me and I’ll think carefully of what I’ll do next.”

“It’s already over, Bruno.” Henrique folded his arms and gave a small glance to Yu who was slowly recovering, she wasn’t looking at the fire anymore which was a good sign already, and picked the chaplet that he had on his neck. “You lack some faith, you know that?”

“Then I’ll just have to kill you.”

“I’ll be saving you despite the mess you are making.”

Red light came out and some beams going in his direction were not synchronized, they were stray lines going at him, as it should be seen from someone who had no control over it. Imagine if someone like this had something powerful on his hands. Centuries ago this had happened, but Henrique wouldn’t let some maniac do whatever he wanted.

“Divinum Praesidium.” 

As he pointed the chaplet with his left arm at the man who was trying to hurt him and from there the gem in his chaplet shone through and from it a long white barrier appeared blocking the attacks, simply letting it be shattered by the barrier.

“How is this possible?! A mere Exorcist like you shouldn’t be…..”

Henrique didn’t ask and didn’t care about what the mage was saying, all he had to do was to get closer to him, he wouldn’t use any holy magic to attack someone like that, showing his cards to the people watching him would be trouble, so he did what he partners loved to do and he wasn’t a fun of at all. 

A one liner.

“I’m not an Exorcist.” He started to walk in his direction, soon the walk became faster and started running at Bruno. He didn’t grab the spear, but he didn’t need it, he had five strategies ready for the cocky mage.

Bruno started yelling as the priest approached, Henrique didn’t know if that was the pain of using blood magic or if he was angry as he was trying to shoot more projectiles at him. The barrier was nothing extraordinary, but due his adversary’s temper, the shots wouldn’t be as effective or precise, having to rely on faith and the gem of the chaplet to protect him was a bit of a pain, but he realized he didn’t really needed it as he started approaching more and more and the shots of blood magic were each time more off the target to the point he didn’t even needed to keep up the barrier once the gap was almost closed.

The mage tried to give a few backsteps “Die, already!” and pointed his bloody hand at the priest, a clean shot and no way to miss it, but this also meant the distance between them didn’t exist anymore.

“I’m a strategist.”

He didn’t let the mage finish his spell, he grabbed his open palm and pulled to his direction just to move his other arm to hit his chest with the elbow and with a technique he had learned when he was in China and using swift moves, just like the kung fu martial movies, he managed to him him again and follow with a throw, tossing him on the sand of Rio de Janeiro’s beach, still holding his arm while the body was on the floor, but putting his right leg on the top of it to make sure the brat wouldn’t try to escape.

“The strategist. Now let’s see.”

He pulled the arm with a tight grip. “Do you want the long or the short version?”

The man was still awake and was complaining about their hurting.

“The long version it is then.” He pulled a bit more the arm while keeping his feet on the mages back.

“You lied to the Church, this gives you a huge penalty and pay a fee and lose part of your wealth. Not only you attempted to coerce robbery, in this case is Corruption, you don’t only lose your wealth but any workshop you have under control. Inciting a small gang war by making an agent of the Church steal something from a gang of Lycanthropes and have a lot of people die meaningless because of your idiocy. This can give you a personal trial with the Branch Leader of the Church of this Country or City depending on the region. You destroyed Private property not related to any magic entity, that will get you in trouble with the actual police. You attempted to kill an Agent of Iscariote, this will give you a hard time in the trial. Performing magic with the risk of exposing magic to the mundane world, this can cost your life. Using blood magic. This will cost your life. And last but not least, you messed with my protegee.” 

Each accusation that has been voiced he binded the mage with miracles, magic that was thought by the church and was believed that was based on faith and as a form of God to allow peace to be achieved. Each time he spoke a white, a white mantle appeared under the sand and wrapped the mage all over it. He struggled against it but once the mantle was over his body, Henrique let go of the arm, as would repel his energy and mana, leaving all the body, except for the head.

“Long story short. You are in deep trouble, Bruno.”

Henrique looked behind him after leaving the guy on the floor tied up by the holy mantle. He heard the rustles from the trees and bushes they had to pass through.

“No need to hide. I know you’ve been following us.”

More than a few figures finally got in his line of sight, there was no need to force his view, the fire of the bar was enough to show the gang of werewolves and in front of them was Jailson, this time he wasn’t surrounded by his thugs in human form, they were more in their wolf form.

“So you really are from the Church aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“You, sir. Lied to me. You two lied.” He pointed his finger “Oh God, the trouble we will be in because of this.”

“No, Yu isn’t part of the Church at all.”

“So why does she follow you?”

“A promise is a promise. I thought you would know better about it.” Henrique was tired so he decided to keep walking to the coconut tree where Yu was, she had fallen asleep, she looked like a little girl the way she was sitting. “Anyway, we’ll be leaving the country tomorrow and your petrified egg is on the bike.”

“And you are going to leave like that?”

“Well, this guy over there tried to screw up with you, not me. I’ll have to take a few turns before informing the Church.”

Jailson looked angry but started to think for a bit “Fine. I’ll trust you. I don’t want to ever see you or your scar again around that area or you will end up sleeping with the bats.”

“Fine by me.”

“If it weren't for the girl…”

“I know, I know. I get that a lot.” He picked the girl up, he wouldn’t wake her up. There was still time to report and everything. Tomorrow is a new day and to pack everything before leaving once again.

He looked at the bike but knew he couldn’t simply put her there or she would fall off, it was during those moments he missed his old Bike, but he noticed he had forgotten the radio on he didn’t know the song, but he liked how it played, the only advantage this bike ever had over his old one is that he at least could know the name of the song right away so he kept going walking back to the hotel with “Infinita highway” on his mind.


	7. Epilogue

“You gotta be kidding me.”

“Hey! Relax, forget it about last night, amigo! It was all just a way to show the outsiders who they were dealing with.”

Henrique was sitting at the beach, but this time he was wearing his Church clothes, and he was feeling that he was melting under the heat, now he knew how that sand golem felt when he was hit by water.

He was calmly reading the newspaper about a fire that happened at the beach and how the suspect, Bruno Menta, at the beach while he made Yu go grab some popsicles. She was feeling way better than yesterday and the spear was left back in the hotel. Until Jailson appeared in front of him with sunglasses and wearing horrible flowery shorts and nothing on top, showing his hairy chest seating.

“So you still want to see me and my scar?”

The man laughed while Henrique was still tired from last night. He just wanted to go back to the Vatican, but his flight would be at night. He sighed in frustration.

“Good to know we are on good terms, then. I guess that’s good for Yu, next time we go around here, that is if we ever come back.”

“Good, good. you two are fun.” Henrique was tired so he didn’t get the whole talk. He had to go to the Church having to talk with a bad tempered nun for being so late at night and how he wasn’t wearing their uniform, then he finally got to go to the hotel and receiving a bad eyeing of the workers due him carrying Yu and finally got to sleep at 5 am, while Yu woke up at 9:45 and now it was 10:25 am. He got to sleep one additional hour and that was a victory by itself.

“And now you are going to say goodbye to us?”

“That and because you forgot something last night?”

“I did?”

A rock was thrown behind him at the table and behind him, Ricardo was with his beanie and a few gazes on him, but unlike his brother, he was wearing something to cover him up. And for once he was smiling on his own without needing someone to talk with him. “Yeah, your prize.”

“No, thanks. I had to do that to trick that idiot.” He says pointing to the picture of Bruno all beat up in the newspaper. “I think you will need it more than me.”

“You got it fair and square in that gamble. Besides I know magic for shit. What kind of werewolf uses magic anyway? A useless one, that’s for sure.” Ricardo gave a pat on Henrique’s shoulder which felt mildly uncomfortable. “You know where to find us if you are looking for fun or anything. You two will always be welcome at Bestas Bossa Nova Club.”

“You two won’t say goodbye to Yu?”

“We already met the girlie and we have serious business to take care of now.”

“Without a T-shirt.”

“Yeah, it will be a mean business if you get my drift.” And the man laughed again as he got up. “See you around Henry.”

Great, another nickname that he will have to endure, the two men gave a wave and kept their way out of the beach, Henrique could finally finish reading and start to make the cross words before Yu would arrive.

“Santy!” 

It was too late for that . 

Yu was finally back, this time coming with the popsicles and she was holding something else. “Have you talked to Mister Jailson and Mister Ricardo?”

“Yeah.”

“We can go back to the club as VIP!”

“Really now?”

“Yeah! Also.” She placed a small postcard on the table. “You should write to him.”

“Write what?”

“He’s your partner.”

“Yeah, and?”

“Don’t ‘yeah and’! That’s your chance to talk about your fun.”

Henrique thought for a bit, it was true that the loser would send him postcards everytime he was on a mission and now he was doing some protection work most of the time so he was finally stuck at one place, so once per month he would send something trying to mock him and Yu. It was more like a ritual between the two. One always sends something to irritate the other, everyone in the Branch believes the two hated each other. He never went to Brazil so he had the upper hand now to piss him off.

“Alright, you won.” He said with a smug.

“So how should we start the postcard?”

“Well, we have the whole day off before getting to the airport.” This was going to be fun. “How about we start with a ‘How’s going, loser. Enjoying the freezing cold? I bet you wanted somewhere a bit warmer, come to Brazil! Oh wait! You can’t, motherfucker! Till next time. Henrique and Yu.’” He said as he picked the petrified dragon egg, the feeling of holding it was weird, but nice. He could notice that by putting in a certain angle under the sun he could see some markings of it, not what one usually could from this.

“That’s really good but how about changing from loser to nanny?”

“Why nanny? I don’t get it.” He was too focused on checking on the petrified rock, it was different from the ones he saw in the book. This one had a more green colored mana to see through under the angle instead of the usual blue. Well, he didn’t need to have one of those things with him. His magic was decent and he wouldn’t be relying on that. This might as well be another accessory to Yu’s spear for all he cares, she wouldn’t mind either as is a memory from those werewolves weirdos. It was nice

“He is one now, isn’t he?”

Henrique laughed, she was right, that blondie smug must have been suffering to be stuck in one place. That would make him mad for sure.

It didn’t take long for them to have a peaceful day, no need for them to train, work or anything for this day.

Just enjoying the brief moment of peace and fun that the heat of Rio de Janeiro at the never stopping sound of Bossa Nova could provide.

See you next time, Rio de Janeiro. These two will miss you.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah. My short stories usually don’t have a message or a good development but, hopefully, they are fun for my dear readers for the stupidity and commitment I put in this.
> 
> Yu is the upbeat kid while Santy is the tired and stressed guy who has to look over, even if they will deny their relationship as father and daughter type, they totally have a father and daughter like relationship. 
> 
> This 'short' story of mine ended around 50 pages at first, I don't know how long will be in this format.
> 
> I had too much fun writing it, I hope you had it while reading this too!
> 
> Star's out.


End file.
